Friday, June 29, 2007

Grant vs Me part 1

Wasted potential pains me.

As much as my wrinkled up 30 something carcass feels some alpha male intimidation from Grant sitting across from me in his 27 year old rugby half forward trained English aristocrat model turned actor looks and poise, the feeling of male race deprecation soon leaves me as the young lad gets that all too common fear of the attractive woman double taking our group. Actually, she bypassed me and as I can see a woman's intentions often almost as soon as she generates them, knew she'd spotted him as the one true specimen that can give her the correct genetic donor package to ensure her offspring are superior.

It's often strange the way things turn out. I never really noticed the barriers of life rolling underneath me an out on my wake as I age more gracefully than all my peers, especially the married nagged sad sacks of shit from my older past. Aging gracefully or not, it matters little that in my late 30s I am in my late 30s and never again will I be able to compete with the superficiality that is a 27 year old buck in his prime.

Let's say that I am still virile enough and attractive enough to satisfy the eye candy requirement of most women and in most crowds would not feel the effect of my age, but Grant, well, it's not enough to state that he is me as I was because as far as impression goes, and the accent, he's far more than I ever was. I'm gay enough to understand when metrosexual is surpassed by heterosexual ruggedness, and well, I am employed to notice when both men and women are marketable to the masses.

There are only two of us in the group of five, me and Grant. I don't need to describe the other guys, it's not necessary, if you were a woman able to see us, you'd agree.

A long with her forty inch legs and the fine lines of her Norwegian cut face, the person whom I was to know as Hayley stepped into the bar presumably looking for her friends who were a gaggle of lesser creatures and cougars that had gone on to a club off Robson Street ten minutes prior. Despite her looks, which were the price of entry into my attention in the moment, she did the most amazing breeze across our vision streams, eyes like beams rolling up and down her body with one exception. I ignored her while Grant, I think drooled some.

Hayley did double take on Grant and my age jealousy hated him. He seemed to not understand that she'd set her eyes on him and ignored us, rejected us, and it was as if our judgment or potential disapproval of her female specimen was irrelevant to her self esteem.

I had to have her.

The Westin Grand hotel bar is not very large, but large enough at 1am put five slightly drunk guys in one corner and for Hayley to find an empty table at the other end. This is where she placed herself, and to this day, despite her conversation, I was not sure she was ever waiting for her friends or had missed the club scene that evening.

Hayley was on the prowl, and Vancouver is saturated with appropriate targets for her traveling entertainment. She was across from us, just far enough away out of passive conversation or impressionable communication range, made sure we could see all of her legs from mid thigh down as she folded herself into a chair and opened her cellphone.

I knew Grant was in and the three of us in the no-hope category also knew Grant was in, only, Grant did not know he was in. I leaned into our huddle as our conscious conversation continued as it was before Hayley entered our periphery, and looked over at her. I caught her eye for half a second where she turned away as if I did not exist. I looked back at the group then returned a quick glance to see she had not returned my eye.

As pained as that made me feel in my old age, I knew she'd decided if anyone was to have any chance of even smelling her this night it was grant. I hushed the tone of my voice, leaned into Grants space, and said to him.